It's like a dream
by maebell's chronicles
Summary: ...Or is it a Nightmare? When howl starts vanishing and ignoring Sophie, she knows something is going on. so she starts to learn magic behind his back. Then things take a turn for the worst. (Dun duun DUUUUN)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: hello! Mae here. Just a warning: this story will not be fluffy for the first chapters. Sorry. there Will be fluff later though, so stay with me!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Howls Moving Castle or any of the characters in it.**

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It had been a month and a half since howl had gotten his heart back. Not once since had he directly looked at me or spoken with me and I was starting to get worried. Maybe he didn't want to be more than friends. Maybe he didn't want to be friends. Maybe the first kiss we shared would be the last kiss we shared…

Warm rays of sunlight poured into my eyes like lemon juice. I rolled over and groaned. I tried to continue sleeping but I couldn't settle down. I groaned and pulled a pillow over my head. I still couldn't drift back into sleep. "I never asked to be an early riser" I groaned, pulling the pillow off my head and sitting up. The floorboards creaked as I put my full weight on them. I stood up fully and stretched. I shambled over to my cupboard and opened the heavy oak doors. Selecting a light green version of my old grey dress, I walked over to the bathroom. I shut and locked the door behind me, even though no one would come in, and hung my green dress on a peg. I brushed my teeth and washed my face with unfortunately cool water. I slipped the nightgown over my head and pulled my green dress on. My hair had grown quite a lot since Calcifer had eaten it most of it, and it was down past my shoulders. I twisted it into a quick bun at the back of my head, and walked out of the en-suite and downstairs.

I tossed a log on calcifer as I walked passed him. He popped his head up and smiled at me. "g'morning Sophie" He mumbled as I searched around for my bucket and gardening shears. "wassa time?" he said sleepily "Just past sunrise" I replied "howl won't be up for ages; you can go back to sleep." "Ok" he said, before disappearing under a log. I smiled and went to check the flower shop for my stuff. I found my floaty bucket sitting in the corner. Howl had enchanted it for me so it floated behind me when I walked, making collecting flowers for the shop much easier. I walked over to it and tapped it twice. At once it sprang off the floor and began to hover towards the door. I followed behind it, holding the gardening shears in one hand and a trowel in the other

When we reached the door I placed the gardening tools in the bucket and switched the door handle along two places, setting the colour to pink. I opened the door, pushing a bit as it jammed stubbornly, but then I was through into my private paradise. Well, as private as you can be with a magic teleporting wizard hanging around. I smiled and walked towards the lake.

At the edge of the lake, a certain type of plant which I had named stagnum amator grew in abundance. Most of the plants that grew in howls meadow he had made himself using his magic, so they grew nowhere else. I had counted and categorized them all, in a huge book that I was still adding new species to. This was what made the flower shop so popular; none of the flowers that they sold there could be bought anywhere else. Lots of people in the town wanted rare plants to plant in their gardens, and I sold special hard-wearing plants to traders so they could be shipped to other countries. The shop was doing so well, I was thinking about opening a second one in Kingsbury. There were lots of weddings and events that needed flowers there, right? Anyway, I needed lots of these flowers for Lettie. She was making a special cake, and she wanted small purple flowers to decorate. These would be perfect. I set to work with my shears. In fact they were too small to be called shears, they were more like scissors. After I had gathered half a bucketful of flowers, I headed over to the little cottage.

I opened the creaky door, exposing the small but cosy room inside. There were pots stacked up in the corners, and vases of flowers everywhere. One wall had been completely covered in shelves, and they were crammed chock full of potions. Directing the floaty bucket over to the desk I made my way to one of these shelves. I selected a large green jar under the label preserver and walked back over to the desk. Unstopping the bottle with a pop, I poured about a tenth of the liquid into the bucket and watched it dissolve into mist before it hit the flowers. They would have to settle for at least half an hour, so I carefully shook them out of my floaty bucket into a regular one which I left sitting in the shade by the empty fireplace. I grabbed a larger pair of shears and headed back out.

Around the back of the house, some knot-weed was choking the pretty water wheel and I decided to sort it out. It had been annoying me for a while now, and I never had the time to fix it. Now would be perfect. I sighed. This was not going to be fun. I started to hack at the tough, winding plant with my shears. I sliced and chopped and tore at the thick stem but it wasn't working. The plant was just too tough. I needed something sharper. I walked back inside and got a thick knife from the tool box. This made the work less difficult, but it was so tiring and boring. This would be so much easier if howl could just magic it all away. I hacked a little harder. Why wasn't he talking to me? What had I done? Did he not like like me? I wouldn't mind if he didn't, so long as he talked to me…no that was a lie. I missed him talking to me, I missed just…him. I huffed and continued to saw and slice away at the stubborn plant. wait. maybe I could learn how to do magic. Not advanced magic like howl, but basic things like levitation and cutting spells. It would make my life so much easier, and how hard could it be if I had broken a curse on howl and calcifer? I stopped attacking the plant and thought about this. I should go and ask howl then. At breakfast, because he simply vanished for the rest of the day, either up to his room or out the mysterious black portal. And with that I began to collect up all the bits I had trimmed off so far. Magic would make this easier as well, I thought to myself. One flick of a hand and woooosh! Everything gone, turned to dirt. Or dust. Or whatever, I don't know how these things work.

I shoved all the bits into the green crate and walked back into the little cottage. I poured the preserved flowers into my floaty bucket which had been sitting in the corner. It followed me dutifully as I left the house and walked over to the portal door. I opened it and walked inside, it was cold and the room was still dark. Calcifer had gone off to where ever fire demons go in their spare time, and he had left the room cold. I wandered over to the flower shop and left the bucket on the counter, tapping it twice to de-activate it. I could wrap them up later. I walked back into the main house and was starting a regular fire when calcifer whushed down the chimney and settled onto his bed of logs. "Hey Sophie" he said. He glanced at the matches in my hand and the frying pan sitting on the fireplace "No need to start a fire because I'm back now" he said wearily "Come on Calcifer, it's not that hard!" I said as cheerily as possible. I grabbed the frying pan and said "bend over" to him. He muttered under his breath but reluctantly bent over and I placed the pan on his head. I grabbed the eggs and bacon from the pantry and began cooking. I cracked the eggs on the side of the pan and tossed the empty shells to calcifer. He began to chew on them noisily. I glared down at him "you're making gross noises again" I told him. He ignored me. I rolled my eyes and continued cooking. Trying to get howl up before he wanted to would result in being turned into a turnip for the rest of the week, and I didn't want to chance that. Howl would probably just ignore my knocking anyway. The only time I could be sure I would see him was at breakfast. So I sat down In front of the calcifer and waited, stirring the bacon and eggs.

**A/N: how was it? good? bad? lots of errors? I will only know if you tell me! (by reviewing!)**

**my chapters are usually around 1.5k or 2k words, but if i am feeling 'inspired' I might just drop a 5k :O.**

**I'm heading nearer to my GCSE's so I am getting lots of homework, but I'm sure I'll find time for this story.**

**P.S. reviews are better than flying with Howl! :P**

**~Mae**


	2. Chapter one point five

**A/N: OK, so at the start of the year they told us we would have a report card in the first term, so in every subject we are having tests. which sucks. and, you know, impacts my writing. A LOT. even now, i have a chemistry and German test tomorrow and i have done zero revision for it. Nada. as soon as I have posted this, I am gettin' out my books and settlin' down for a long evening/morning of studdying. combined with that, there have been 61 viewers and 2 reviews. come on guys! even just a single word. look at it this way:**

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The food sizzled in the pan as I waited for everyone to come downstairs. I stared absently out of the window, lost in a happy little revive.

"Sophie" calcifer said "Sophie? Hmm you might want to-" I waved a sleepy hand in his direction

" shhhhsh, calcifer, I"m _daydreaming_" calcifer paused

"...yeah, OK but could you just-"

"no." I tried to ignore him but his screechy little voice was too insistent.

"Sophie! Sophie! SOPHIE!" I continued staring out the window. I felt a burning flash of heat on my arm and I jerked my hand back, jarring the frying pan out of my grip and onto the floor. I rubbed the pink streak on my forearm and glared at calcifer.

"You _burned_ me" I said accusingly. He flared up massively and bellowed

"SOPHIE! HE FOOD IS ON FIRE!"

"WHAT?!" I leapt up, knocking the chair to the floor, and sure enough, the bacon was on fire. I had knocked the pan to the floor and spilled the food everywhere, and the room was covered in strips of flaming bacon.

"GAAAH" I yelled and ran round the room stamping on the fiery bacon to put it out. Finally, all the bacon had been stomped on, and reduces to a crispy pile of ashes. Mmmh, smoky. I stood with my back to calcifer and counted the scorch marks

" ..1..2.3...4..5..." I froze. Where was the sixth scorch mark? I had put six pieces of bacon in the pan so...it was still smouldering somewhere I couldn't see. I scanned the room feverishly. The warmth behind me began to increase steadily.

"No need to be worried calcifer, I'll find the bacon..." The heat continued to increase, accompanied by a FWOOSH of rising flame. I sighed and turned round just as calcifer noticed and yelled

"SOOOOOPHIEEEEE! THE _CHAIR_ IS ON FIRE!"

I sprinted over to the sink and started to fill a flower bucket, complete with flowers in it, with water. "Thanks for the warning calcifer!" I yelled sarcasticly, before dashing over to the chair. he just shrugged and said

"better late than never."I flung the water over the chair, but the bucket was small, and most of the space was taken up by the little purple flowers I had picked earlier. They were magically preserved, so when they landed on and around the chair, they didn't burst into flames.

"What a pretty fire!" I turned, astounded, to find the witch of the waste, or granny as we affectionately called her, staring at the flower covered chair. I must have stood too close to the fire, because the next thing I knew calcifer was shrieking

" SOPHIE! YOUR DREEEEEESS!" I turned and found that the back of my dress was on fire, the flames dancing merrily. I screamed and dropped to the floor rolling around and trying to put out the flames.

"stop, drop n' roll, stop, drop n' roll, stop, drop n' roll" I yelled, twisting around like a demented monkey having a heart attack. Aaaaand that was what howl saw when he walked in, dressed in black trousers and an immaculate white shirt.

we must have looked like we were performing some sort of crazy ritual, with me rolling around screaming before a burning chair covered with little purple flowers. "This is_ not_ what it looks like" I yelled from the floor, still rolling and thrashing.

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** RIGHT! that's that then!**

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